Biomarkers in Head and Neck Cancer Progression

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is an Independent Scientist Career Development Award Application (K02). It is designed to enhance the applicant's ability to integrate cancer bioinformatics with proteomics/ tumor biomarkers. The candidate is an Associate Professor of Dentistry at the University of Michigan. She is an established and productive dentistscientist with R01 funding from the NIH. She has developed an exciting translational research program in identification and validation of biomarkers of detection and progression of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The K02 award will further her research career by providing her relief from teaching and service thereby providing her with uninterrupted time to focus on scholarly activities. It would allow her to acquire the expertise to be an informed user of cancer bioinformatics, an essential component of cancer biology research. The candidate plans to use this time to develop didactic and practical bioinformatics knowledge to identify and study biomarkers of relevance to head and neck cancer biology. In order to accomplish this, she will take advantage of available Translational Pathology and strong Cancer Bioinformatics resources and spend time on intensive research in her current research projects. This expertise will accelerate her progress in validation of E-cadherin, rapl and a5¿1 integrin as tumor progression biomarkers and facilitate her research in identification and validation of novel signaling proteins that are involved in this molecular network. She will also use this time to become more integrated in the translational pathology community, which will lead to productive collaborations and efficient utilization of resources. Acquisition of a thorough understanding of cancer bioinformatics will allow her to foster collaborations with other head and neck cancer researchers and to accelerate her progress in the identification of head and neck cancer biomarkers. The cancer bioinformatics expertise will also help her other research interest in early detection biomarkers. The immediate goal is to use published microarray studies in a searchable platform with molecular concept modeling, to multiplex the cancer biomarkers being investigated in her laboratory with other biomarkers, such as p53, to determine the extent to which a highly specific and sensitive panel of markers of tumor progression can be developed. The long term goal is to use a meta-analysis approach in the context of the data mining platform to uncover novel signatures of tumor detection, progression and metastasis. Putative biomarkers will be validated in vitro and in vivo. Public Health Relevance: This is an Independent Scientist Career Development Award Application (K02). It will further Dr. D'Silva's research career by providing her relief from teaching and service thereby providing her with uninterrupted time to focus on scholarly activities. It would allow her to acquire the expertise to be an informed user of cancer bioinformatics, an essential component of cancer biology research. The candidate plans to use this time to develop didactic and practical bioinformatics knowledge to identify and study biomarkers of relevance to head and neck cancer biology.